Saturday, February 9, 2008

Folklore Dirndl

Oh how I love fairy tales and folklore, as if no one had already guessed! The fantastical and dreamy, the traditional and moralistic, the allegory of virtue, innocence, darkness or depravity ...

And duh, the clothes!

I present to you: the Dirndl. The style of dress loved by women for its merger of the traditional girl-next-door and the tempting but-oh-I'm-not-really-trying-to-tempt-you vixen, and loved by men for the unabashed decolletage and sense of festivity. In other words, cleavage and beer. Just go to Oktoberfest or look at any advert for St. Pauli ale.

But for me, Bavarian ensembles conjure the very spirit of Brother's Grimm stories and their classic germanic illustrations. I love the dirndl as a darling icon of a fascinating, tantalizing and uncertain world in the mythic dreamscape of fairy tales and folklore.

dirndl_chocolate

dirndl_watermelon

dirndl_tulip

dirndl_bloodflower

In fact I've already made a mini-dirndl before, but it's being taken off the virtual shelves as it was one of my first projects and in my opinion not up to par with my newest work.

The Folklore Dirndl, however, I'm thrilled about from the texturing to the prims. Each dress, aside from the varied color combinations, also has its own embroidery pattern unique from the others. There are two sleeve options (three if you count sleeveless): on or off the shoulder.

Click the pictures to see the larger images on Flickr, or navigate to the menu on the right to get an SLURL or go to SLX.